The present invention relates to expand tapes for use at dicing of semiconductor wafers.
A semiconductor device is generally manufactured through a cutting process of cutting a semiconductor crystal into semiconductor wafers, a dicing process of dicing the semiconductor wafer into semiconductor chips, a die-bonding process of die-bonding the semiconductor chip to a package and so on.
When the semiconductor wafer is diced, an expand tape has conventionally been used. The expand tape is made of synthetic resin film which is expandable. At the dicing process, a wafer 14 is stuck onto a surface 11a of the expand tape as shown in FIG. 3(a). Under this state, the wafer 14 is diced (see FIG. 3(b)). When the expand tape 1 is expanded, the wafer 14 is separated into chips 15, 15, . . . , 15 (see FIG. 3(c)). These chips 15 are then die-bonded onto lead frames, etc., using a preform material (e.g., a silver or solder paste) in the subsequent die-bonding process.
A dicing process using the aforesaid conventional expand tape is separated from a die-bonding process. Thus, semiconductor device manufacturing processes involve a greater number of steps and require more hands. Further, there is another problem that the handling of the preform material in addition to the expand tape is required.